


little green pill called love

by singingaboutwishing



Series: Dina is Sad and So Am I [4]
Category: The Band's Visit - Yazbek/Moses
Genre: F/M, Fix-it fic, Sadness, dina is sad, i am sad, thus the name of my series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22329781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singingaboutwishing/pseuds/singingaboutwishing
Summary: Simply put, Dina wants to be in love again.
Relationships: Dina/Tewfiq Zakaria
Series: Dina is Sad and So Am I [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1585714
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

Dina misses being in love.

She does not miss her ex-husband, but she misses being in love. 

She misses the electric shock of his lips on hers, she misses the chills that ran down her spine when he held her hand, she misses the warmth in her chest from waking up next to him.

Tewfiq did not kiss her, nor hold her hand, nor did she wake up next to him. She imagines that it would be like that, though.

Dina wants life to be _like that_ again.

Being in love was like the one time she went to the city. She put on a short, wine-colored dress and decided to forget who she was for a night. She was far too young, she drank far too much, and took the little green pill that some girl in the club handed her without a second thought. For three hours, Dina felt like she was swimming in the concept of joy. Everything she did was fun, everyone who so much as brushed up against her was beautiful. Every positive feeling was heightened and every negative feeling diminished. The sensation of being alive was nothing short of spectacular.

Being in love was like taking that little green pill, except it lasted for more than three hours.

Her admittedly tainted memories of love are no longer enough. She needs more.

Haled was not enough to satiate her. There was no electric shock; it only ripped the hole in her heart further. It burned, it hurt, but she could not stop for fear that she would fall apart entirely.

She could use another one (or ten) of those pills. She wonders what it was. 

She has a dream one night that Tewfiq comes back. He holds her hand and kisses her and does all the right things and she is on her green pill again. Everything is beautiful; she feels warm and happy and alive. She wakes up and does not remember the dream until she is halfway through brushing her hair.

She sits on the edge of her bathtub and sobs.

She wants to fill the void. She wants to see him.

Unfortunately, alcohol does not fill the void. She’s tried before, but now she cuts herself off. Dina is not about to become a crazed alcoholic like that boy who stumbles around the park. She gives him a wide berth and reminds herself that she absolutely can not be him.

Dina is a woman on the edge. She is an emotional wreck all the time. She does not want to survive like this, but she knows she must. She cannot abandon Papi and leave Itzik in charge of the café. She won’t ruin any lives other than her own.

Dina isn’t an idiot, though. She knows that what she really needs is therapy, but therapy is a) expensive and b) impossible without the entire town knowing. She does not feel like publicly shaming herself, so silently pining is the solution for now.

She almost talks to Papi about it because she knows damn well that that boy is still in love with Haled (she hasn’t told him what they did, of course, and Haled may not even love him back), but she doesn’t want to burden an already fragile person.

Papi has no such qualms about sharing with her. There was one day where she listened to him talk for an hour about how he bought Chet Baker music, listened to it once, and then couldn’t bring himself to do it again because it pained him too much. It hurt her to see him so brokenhearted. She decided then that she should find someone else to talk to about her own issues.

 _Who_ , though? Dina has always been the one who played friend therapist; she consoled Iris about her marriage, that little girl Julia about having to be in the army, and Papi about, well, everything.

She ends up buying a journal and writing everything down in it. It’s not much of a “Dear Diary,” mostly just bullet point lists of how she’s feeling. It does help to see her thoughts on paper, though the number of times she writes “אני כל כך מתוסכל שאני רוצה לנסוע באוטובוס לקליה ולהטיס את עצמי לים המלח” is quite alarming.

She could theoretically reach out to him; she eventually got an address and a phone number. She knows he has her address, too. She feels like she is playing a game of chicken, however one-sided it may be.

She is a coward, she thinks. She is too afraid of having to pick up the pieces of her heart again— not that her heart is intact now.

And so Dina is stuck at an impasse, waiting. Waiting for nothing and everything, too afraid to even try for something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hebrew Translation: אני כל כך מתוסכל שאני רוצה לנסוע באוטובוס לקליה ולהטיס את עצמי לים המלח = I am so frustrated that I could take the bus to Kalya and fling myself into the Dead Sea. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not speak, read, or write Hebrew, so I used Google Translate. This may not be 100% accurate.


	2. Chapter 2

One day, Papi runs into the café with the widest smile Dina has ever seen on him.

”Dina!” he practically shouts, “I just got off the phone with Haled! His wedding is being postponed because of the venue or something and he is coming to Bet Hatikva next week!”

Dina’s heart cracks, but her face smiles.

”That’s wonderful, Papi!”

She’s ecstatic for him, she truly is. She just wishes that something would make her as happy as Haled makes him.

It’s probably a good thing she doesn’t know what that pill is. She, in all likelihood, would end up overdosing if she had them.

A week passes and Papi is a nervous wreck. He is to go pick up Haled from the bus stop and bring him back to the café for coffee. Dina has to remind him many times that Haled would not be coming if he did not want to come very much.

Papi goes and picks up Haled and Dina busies herself with making coffee and wiping tables.

Papi comes back, holding the door for Haled.

Haled and another man.

Dina thinks her eyes are tricking her.

_No._

_This can’t be real._

He smiles softly.

”Madame,” he practically whispers.

”General.”

_This is real._

Papi coughs and the spell is broken. Dina snaps out of it.

”Let me get some coffee, I-I’ll, uh, please, sit.” She still cannot comprehend this. No one told her. Did Papi know?

She gets coffee, and they sit at a table on the patio for a moment.

Tewfiq breaks the silence.

”I am so sorry to come on such short notice. Haled told me last week that he was coming, and I thought I might come with him. Papi said that you agreed to let me stay with you. I appreciate it greatly.”

Dina had done no such thing, but she only smiled and made a mental note to smack Papi later. At least her apartment was clean.

”It is no problem at all,” she replies.

He is not in his band uniform, she finally notices. He looks like an ordinary citizen in his button-up shirt and trousers. She misses the suit a little. It was cute.

Shortly after, Papi and Haled go to do whatever it is that young people do, leaving Dina and Tewfiq alone in the golden haze of the sunset.

They sit and stare at each other. She thinks the golden light brings out a honey color in his eyes and a gentleness of expression.

She never thinks like this. The feeling of the green pill starts to creep back into her body.

As romanticized as everything feels, Dina is terrified. Her heart is in her throat. Part of her wants to run off into the desert and never come back. She forces herself to stay, though.

_He came back for a reason. He would not just be sitting and staring at you with such beautiful eyes if he did not have any feelings for you.... but don’t be ridiculous, Dina. He can’t. He still wears his wedding ring._

_How strange we must look_ , she thinks. _We have been sitting and staring so long that it is nearly nighttime._

Dina clears her throat ever so slightly. ”Would you like to go upstairs with me?” she asks, then cringes internally at the way it sounds.

”If that is alright.”

They make the trek up her one flight of stairs. It feels like an hour instead of a minute.

As she lets him inside, there is a momentary panic where she wonders if she washed the sheets in her spare room after the last time Papi stayed over, but she did and it is okay. She notices that Tewfiq heads straight for said spare bedroom to put his luggage in it.

_He remembers._

She sits at the table, trying to calm her heart down.

_Nothing will happen if you cannot even speak, ילדה טיפשה. Pull yourself together._

He comes back out and sits across from her. She mentally prepares herself to speak.

”How was your concert?”

”It went well. Funding is not being cut.”

”That is good, that is good.”

A lull. 

“How is your café?” 

“You know. We get by. Nothing too interesting.”

_Where is the spark? Where is the electricity of that night? Why are we left with this nothing conversation?_

Dina decides to take the first blind chance that she has taken in years. She is swallowing and she does not know if it is her green pill or an impostor.

“Tewfiq, I need to be honest with you. I could not... deal with myself if I was silent. Not a day goes by where I do not think about that night, and I think it is because... because I perhaps have... _feelings_... for you.” She gestures to her heart. 

She looks at his face, the way his brow furrows as the words come out of her mouth. She thinks maybe she should add some damage control.

“And I know that you maybe do not feel like I feel. Because of your wife. But... I... I would not have forgiven myself if I was not sure that you knew. I am sorry to burden you with this.”

Beat, goes her heart.

Beat.

Beat.

“Dina, I...”

Beat.

“I-I also have... _feelings_... for you, too. I think about that night and I... يندم... what is the word in English? _Regret_. I regret turning you away, but I was not ready to face the prospect of moving on.”

Beat.

Beat.

“Are you... ready now?” Dina is relieved, but still wary of what could happen.

"I... believe that I am.” He gives her a soft, tentative smile.

Dina slowly slides her hand across the table and turns her palm up.

He looks at it for a moment.

With the gentlest of motions, he takes her hand.

The shivers run down her spine.

As if on cue, they both stand up to face each other.

She only has to look slightly up to meet his eyes, but she does not remember being shorter. Maybe it was because of her little heels or...

_Doesn’t matter, Dina._

She snaps back into the moment. He looks directly into her eyes as if to ask for her permission.

She nods.

He places a hand on her waist.

She puts her hand on his shoulder.

Beat, goes her heart.

Beat.

Beat.

He bring his lips to hers.

It is the most gentle kiss Dina has ever received, but the electricity that courses through her body is the fiercest that she has ever felt.

Maybe she is in love. She does not know, but she does know that she is alive and she is here and that nothing can take this moment away from her.

She doesn’t need to track down her green pill to feel like that.

This is better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t really know what I was doing with this fic. It was kind of a fix-it? Idk man, I just wanted to shake it up from what I usually write.
> 
> Hebrew Translation: ילדה טיפשה = stupid girl  
> Arabic Translation: يندم = regret  
> Disclaimer: I do not speak, read, or write Hebrew or Arabic, so I used Google Translate. This may not be 100% accurate.
> 
> Find me on tumblr @stars-on-the-cuffs-of-her-jeans


End file.
